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The Patek Lab in the Biology Department at Duke University is hosting a NSF-funded Research Experience for Teachers position during the summer of 2014. The teacher will be directly involved in research examining the evolution and biomechanics of the ultrafast... Read More

Former Patek Lab graduate student Suzanne Cox, Patek and UMass colleagues publish the first paper about Ninjabot, an ultrafast physical model of mantis shrimp.
The new publication can be downloaded here.
A physical model of the extreme mantis shrimp strike: kinematics and... Read More

Patek and former lab undergraduate, Marco Mendoza Blanco, publish a new paper in the journal Evolution entitled, "Muscle tradeoffs in a power-amplified prey capture system". This study offers a new window into the classic force-velocity tradeoffs in muscle contractions placed in the context... Read More

Suzanne Cox won the Best Student Oral Presentation at the 2014 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology awarded by The Crustacean Society. She presented new research on cavitation in mantis shrimp and the use of the physical model, Ninjabot. Congratulations, Suzanne!

Patek and former postdoc Thomas Claverie publish a new paper entitled, "Modularity and rates of evolutionary change in a power-amplified prey capture system" in the most recent edition of the journal Evolution.

The stomatopod (Mantis Shrimp) raptorial appendage creates an ultra-fast strike (~30 m/s) driven by a power-amplification system in the exoskeleton. One portion of this appendage, the merus, is comprised of multiple regions that perform different tasks during striking: some act as a spring, storing... Read More

Dr. Maya deVries, who recently completed her Ph.D., will be joining the Scripps Institute of Oceanography this year as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Jennifer Taylor's laboratory. Congratulations, Maya!